This year’s environment and natural resources budget invests in Minnesota’s natural spaces, the agencies that protect them, and the diverse communities that enjoy them. Senate DFLers focused resources on initiatives that expand access to outdoor recreation for all of our communities – from our youngest learners to state veterans and Minnesotans with disabilities.
We’ve invested in what makes our state special: clean water, natural spaces, and outdoor recreation traditions like hunting and fishing. The Senate DFL prioritized providing funding from the widely popular Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund for projects across the entire state, strengthened the state’s permitting process to make it more accessible to businesses in the state, and provided proactive protections for water supplies being utilized by data centers.
Key Provisions:
Reduced game and fish license fees for disabled veterans
Beginning in 2027, veterans with a service-connected disability rating of 50% or higher will be eligible to purchase game and fish licenses for $5. Increased outdoor recreation has been demonstrated to have positive outcomes as treatment for PTSED and other related conditions that veterans face, and this reduced license fee will help reduce barriers that make it challenging for veterans to connect with these outdoor recreation opportunities. This fee reduction builds on the state’s current program, which offers free licenses to service-connected veterans with 100% disability ratings. (SF 3)
Outdoor Schools for All
This year’s environment budget provides $848,000 in one-time funding for grants to accredited learning centers that provide multiday, overnight educational experiences for students in grades 4-12. This grant funding will be used to provide more opportunities for students to directly experience nature and participate in hands-on learning opportunities, with a focus on expanding accessibility to outdoor education for underserved communities and students with disabilities. (SF 3 / SF 1050)
Keep it Clean grants
Building upon investments made as part of the 2024 supplemental budget, this year’s environment budget provides an additional $200,000 for the popular Keep it Clean grant program. This program distributes funds to local governments and lake associations across the state for projects that help prevent water pollution due to garbage and human waste left on lakes’ ice from winter recreation activities. (SF 3 / SF 2859)
Abandoned watercraft penalties
This legislation establishes a process for removing boats that are abandoned on public waters or lands. The need for this stems after a Minnesota resident marooned a yacht on an island in the St. Croix River for over nine months and refused to take any action to remove it despite accruing tens of thousands of dollars in fees for abandoning it.
Under this law, a person who fails to remove their watercraft is subject to criminal penalties and the revocation of game, fish, and outdoor recreational vehicle licenses until the DNR is reimbursed for all costs associated with removing and disposing of the watercraft. (SF 3 / SF 2735)
Sustainable foraging taskforce
This legislative/citizen/state agency taskforce will develop data-driven recommendations for foraging regulations on state lands that balance the needs of sustainable land practices with the rights of Minnesotans to forage. Many community members and local foraging groups raised concerns in 2024 when the DNR began exploring adopting bag limits for foraging on certain state lands; this taskforce was established to have a robust conversation about foraging practices by bringing a diverse group of perspectives together to ensure any state policies on foraging balance public access with conservation needs and cultural foraging practices and traditions. (SF 3 / SF 1464)
Repealing the state’s shotgun zone
Dating back to the early 1940’s, the state’s shotgun zone encompasses a large swatch of Southern and Western Minnesota and limits the type of firearms for hunting big game to shotguns. Legislators from either side of the political spectrum have brought forward proposals to repeal this zone for many years, but this year’s environment budget bill included a provision to finally end this statutory zone.
To accommodate feedback from local government units within the existing shotgun zone, any county that is wholly or partially located in the former zone will be authorized to regulate the types of firearms that can be used during hunting season, which will allow counties who wish to maintain a shotgun-only policy to do so by ordinance. (SF 3)
Permitting reform
Included in this year’s budget are several provisions designed to provide expedited timelines for environmental permitting. This bipartisan, bicameral package was negotiated between state agencies, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, Minnesota Building and Construction Trades groups, and certain environmental advocates.
With these changes, project applicants will receive more support with navigating the state’s permitting process from Minnesota Business First Stop, have the opportunity to seek expedited permitting at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and state agencies will be required to provide more transparency on their permitting decisions and timelines. (SF 3 / SF 570)
Data Centers
With the nationwide influx of large-scale data centers, Senate DFLers worked diligently to develop clear, responsible environmental standards for data center development. The environmental safeguards in the legislative passed during the 2025 Special Session will ensure that hyper-scale data centers using over 100 million gallons a year must prove that they can do so safely, efficiently, and without damaging local water systems or harming the aquifers all Minnesotans rely on.
This proactive bill is considered to be the first step in establishing nation-leading protections for the environment, but legislators have committed to continuing to look at ways to prevent the overuse of water, especially in aquifer-stressed areas. (HF 16)
NOTE: HF 16 included provisions that also had Tax and Energy implications. See those sections for additional information about the bill.
LCCMR funding recommendations for the ENRTF
Included in this year’s environment budget bill are the 2025 funding recommendations for the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund from the LCCMR. This year’s package includes over $103 million for 124 projects across Minnesota that will protect, conserve, preserve, and enhance Minnesota’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
Each year, the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) is charged with reviewing projects seeking funding from the ENRTF and making funding recommendations to the Legislature. Since 1991, the ENRTF has provided approximately $1.1 billion to nearly 1,800 projects around the entire state. (SF 3 / SF 506)
ENRTF Community Grants Program
As part of the 2024 Election, Minnesota voters enthusiastically reapproved the dedicated funding for the ENRTF with 82.64% of Minnesotan voting in support of this environmental funding. Upon voter approval, this year the Legislature was authorized to appropriate an additional 1.5% out of the ENRTF for a new community grants program for smaller projects within historically underserved communities.
This year’s environment budget bill also included over $28 million for the new community grants program, and legislative leaders from the House and Senate have also pledged to provide additional funding during the 2026 session. Senate DFLers successfully protected the community grants program after legislative Republicans sought to drastically modify the program, and now Minnesotans will have access to this constitutional funding for projects to help adversely impacted communities respond to environmental degradation, raise education and awareness for responsible environmental stewardship, maintain existing trails, and tackle aquatic invasive species in our lakes. (SF 3 / SF 2547)
Did not pass:
Electronic Waste product stewardship program
After a separate proposal on electronic waste failed to gain traction during the 2024 legislative session, this year advocates brought forward a modified proposal to establish a statewide electronic waste product stewardship program, with the goal of providing all Minnesotans access to free e-waste recycling and collection.
Minnesota generates 266 million pounds of e-waste each year, which largely ends up in landfills and incinerators – only about 24% of Minnesota electronic waste currently gets captured for recycling, and the state currently loses up to $3.2 billion in lost critical materials by failing to recycle electronic components.
Lead by the MPCA, county solid waste administrators, and electronics recycling advocates, this year’s bill passed three committees and was heard in a fourth before deadlines made it difficult to work through remaining stakeholder concerns that were raised on the topic. Advocates for the bill have committed to continuing to work on the proposal over the 2025 interim to bring the topic back up during the 2026 legislative session. (SF 1690)
Helium regulatory framework
A bill providing a permanent regulatory framework for the state’s gas resource industry made its way through the legislative process this year. This framework would have worked in tandem with the process initiated by the 2024 legislature with the Department of Natural Resources, after news broke about the discovery of one of the largest helium deposits in the world in Northern Minnesota.
This year’s bill would have more fully articulated the roles and responsibilities of state agencies in managing the permitting of gas wells in the state, as well as provided a framework for distributing proceeds of helium extraction projects to local communities. Though the bill did not pass, the 2024 actions taken by the Legislature will ensure that permitting for this industry is still able to proceed following the development of rules at the DNR. (SF 2530)
Protecting Minnesota’s wild rice waters
This year, a coalition of people and organizations seeking to advance Indigenous rights and climate justice brought forward a proposal to establish a state policy recognizing the inherent right of uncultivated wild rice to exist and thrive in Minnesota. As the state grain of Minnesota, manoomin (wild rice) is also central to Anishinaabeg and Dakota spirituality, culture, nutrition, and economic security. Historical data shows the abundance of wild rice has decreased, with the grain no longer appearing in abundance in southern Minnesota, and several climate and pollution-related impacts have hindered conservation efforts for protecting wild rice habitats that still exist elsewhere in the state (particularly in northern Minnesota). (SF 1247)